Azad Sarkissian's Armenian great-grandparents settled in Iraq more than a century ago, and none of their descendants has stepped on Armenian soil since.

His sister and her family fled the violence in Iraq and are living precariously as United Nations-recognized refugees in Jordan. Sarkissian, in Toronto, has tried and failed three times over the past six years to bring them to Canada through a refugee resettlement application sponsored by the Assyrian Methodist Church of Canada.

But they were startled and angered by the latest response by a Canadian visa officer in Damascus, who said the family should go to Armenia instead.

"We were shocked by the decision," said Sarkissian, a telecommunications technician who came to Canada as a regular immigrant in 1997 and is a Canadian citizen. "They have nobody in Iraq or Armenia. Everyone else is in Canada. Why would Canada want to separate our family?"

Don't you love the guilt trip? Canada didn't separate his family, he did when he willingly chose to come to Canada.

Anjeal Sarkissian, her husband Karabet Aram, and their three boys, Shant, Agob and Apel, are what refugee advocates say are part of a worrisome trend as a growing number of Armenian Christian refugees from Iraq are being rejected and asked to go to Armenia despite having family connections in Canada. "We are surprised and concerned that the possibility of residency in Armenia is being used as a basis to refuse these applications," said Janet Dench, of the Canadian Council for Refugees.

Why is it a concern? What's wrong with expecting Armenians to seek asylum in, well, Armenia? It seems the Canadian Council for Refugees is staffed by lunatics. They are concerned that "the possibility of residency in Armenia is being used as a basis to refuse these applications." Did you get that? Who are these people?

The treatment of Armenian Iraqis reminds Toronto immigration lawyer Chantal Desloges of how Jewish refugees fleeing the Soviet Union after its collapse in the 1990s were denied refugee status and told to resettle in Israel instead.

The problem being?

Get the feeling the refugee system is being used for immigration purposes? What's laughable about this is that these Armenians will come to Canada and be Armenians while living in Canada and be proud of being from Armenia. They'll be Armenian-Canadians. Why don't they just resettle in Armenia and be Armenians living in Armenia. Or is that just crazy talk?

Canada is right to expect asylum seekers to seek asylum in their lands of ancestry or in culturally similar lands. The refugee system should not be another avenue for immigration purposes.

In a series of stunning decisions, the Federal Court of Canada has jumped to the defence of Mexican women trying to stay in Canada to escape violence and abuse.

Six rulings in the past six weeks tossed aside decisions by the Immigration and Refugee Board. In one case, the board had declared that a 17-year-old girl's kidnapping and rape by the Los Zetas drug gang was "horrific" but wasn't bad enough to meet the threshold of "atrocious and appalling."

All must now return to a different panel of the refugee board to have their case reheard for a final decision on whether they can stay.

[...]

Mexicans in the past few years have surged to the top of the list of people asking Canada for refugee protection, from 1,649 claims in 2001 to 7,062 last year. Many are middle-class people trying to escape extortion, kidnapping and violence by flourishing drug cartels that have spawned "the increasing Colombianization of Mexico," in the words of Judith Teichman, an author and professor of political science specializing in Latin America at the University of Toronto.

And some are just middle class economic migrants trying to game the weakest and the most easily abused refugee system in the industrialized world. Just because someone shows up at our border with a sob story doesn't mean what the person is saying is true.

But 89 per cent of claims are rejected, and the sticking point in almost every case is whether the person could get enough protection by Mexican authorities or could move to another part of the country.

That's called internal flight and if that option is open to those seeking asylum here in Canada then Canada as a nation is well within it's U.N. mandated right to force the refugee claimant to return to his or her homeland. This is something Canada should have done to many refugee communities, like Sri Lankans for instance, where internal flight is a viable option. This would curb abuse, causing those unethical enough to defraud a humanitarian system for personal gain to think twice.

"Unbearably high levels of violence against women continue to exist in Mexico," a UN report quoted by the court said. "Police corruption continues to be a major problem and many police officers are involved in kidnapping and extortion. Many believe that sexism and even violence against women are part of the social fabric."

Same thing can be said of Italy. Does this mean we should accept battered Italian women as refugees? Of course not.

They lost their refugee hearing because they lacked documents, but had fled without even suitcases. The Federal Court berated the board for its blinkered insensitivity. "Mexican authorities do not adequately protect women against violence and abuse," the court said.

Eyebrows should automatically raise when a refugee claimant lacks documents. If they lacked documents then how did they get to Canada in the first place? Fraud should immediately come to mind because the ditching of documents is one tactic used by those seeking to defraud the refugee system. Though it back fired for these Mexican women, the loss of proper documentation is a means to protect a refugee claimants story of persecution by making it harder to verify the identities of the would be refugee and thus all the more difficult to ascertain whether they are telling the truth or not.

I suspect judicial activism fueled by feminist ideology heavily influenced the acts of the federal court to toss out the refugee board decisions. But what irks me the most is that this is another case of non citizens rewriting our immigration and refugee laws via court challenges to satisfy their immigration desires. A major earlier example of this is the Singh decision of 1985. When Canada raised the score on its points system a few years ago would be immigrants sued the Canadian government over it forcing Ottawa to reduce the score to its previous level. If left leaning nationalists are upset over NAFTA provisions that allow corporations to sue governments then why are they silent when non-Canadian citizens sue the government to ensure relaxed laws and easy passage into Canada? To me its the same thing because it is a sovereignty issue. If foreign nationals can sue the country over immigration matters then we have lost control of our borders and have lost a piece of our sovereignty.

But more to the matter at hand. Should spousal abuse be grounds for a refugee claim? I say no. A member of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada wrote to the Star with this to say:

Claimants before the Immigration and Refugee Board must establish that they have a well-founded fear of persecution due to race, religion, nationality, membership in a social group or political opinion.

It says nothing about gender and justly so. Spousal abuse is an unfortunate fact of life and if Canada accepts it as a legitimate case for a refugee claim then literally tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of women the world over can make a refugee claim. The reality is that internal flight is open to these women. Failing that then they can hide in any of the many Spanish speaking countries of South America like Argentina for instance. Otherwise they should have made their asylum claim in the first safe country which would be the United States. If they flew here directly then they would need documents to board a plane but the story tells us they have no documents.

I suspect these women are using the refugee system for immigration purposes and spousal abuse as their reason for asylum. Canada should nip this in the bud and deny these women asylum, again. Otherwise Canada can expect to see its refugee system flooded with similar claims.

Saturday, 21 June 2008

Here is a worthwhile read from the Vancouver Courier. My take on the article is par for what I have been stressing on this blog, that mass immigration has more to do with population replacement and neo-colonialism then it does with nation building.

A decision in the Maclean's case is pending. Despite the tribunal nonsense, Steyn's article tapped a taboo subject that, while garnering little attention in Canada, weighs heavy on the minds of millions of Europeans.

Mass immigration, mainly from the Third World, threatens to irrevocably alter the culture of western nations. In his article, Steyn compares shrinking western populations with exploding birthrates in Muslim countries. "Islam has youth and will," he writes, "Europe has age and welfare."

Former Nixon advisor and three-time presidential candidate Pat Buchanan blames western countries for their own inevitable demise. In his politically incorrect book The Death of the West, Buchanan points to a decline in marriage, advances in birth control and rampant abortion as major contributing factors in declining white populations worldwide. "First World nations are dying," writes Buchanan. "They face a mortal crisis. Not because of something happening in the Third World, but because of what is not happening at home and in the homes of the First World."

The death of the family unit, warns Buchanan, is a prelude to the death of nations--from ancient Rome to modern-day Europe and America.

But what about Canada?

According to a 2006 Statistics Canada report, immigrants fuel two-thirds of our population growth. Between 2001 and 2006, Canada's native-born population increased by a mere 400,000. However, during that same five-year period, 1.2 million immigrants--mainly from Asia, Africa, Central and South America and the Middle East--arrived on Canadian soil.

Laurent Martel, a Statistics Canada analyst, said by 2030 our refusal to reproduce will seal our nation's fate. "You're going to see an increase in the number of deaths [of baby-boomers] in Canada and the number of deaths will exceed the number of births--so natural increase will become negative," she said. "The only factor of growth will then be immigration."

Here's why. European culture spawned the now-universal tenets of democratic rule, personal freedom and Christian-based virtue--not to mention many of civilization's greatest scientific and technological achievements. Immigrants flock to Canada not because it resembles the land from which they flee, but because of our liberating Euro-centric society.

Support for mass immigration and multiculturalism is another way of saying that historic traditional Canada is not worth preserving. That there's something wrong with it. Nonsense!

What is happening in Canada right now is the erasure of anything uniquely Canadian and the prevention of developing anything uniquely Canadian. The world is multicultural and Canada adds to it but making Canada multicultural ironically makes the world a less multicultural place.

A realistic solution to Canada's woes is to limit Canada's immigration intake while initiating policies that encourages the growth of the nation's birth rate. The natural birth rate is the most effective means of population growth, not mass immigration. To have to solely rely on immigration is an embarrassment and a symptom of a dying society that sees no worth in it's self preservation. This is cultural suicide. Do we Canadians and our government see no worth in ourselves that population replacement via mass immigration is more preferable to self preservation? If so then maybe Canada is not worth saving after all.

It is not too late. Canada's population will still grow until the year 2020 even without mass immigration. But if the time comes that mass immigration is the only means by which population growth can be realized then it is the end of Canada as we know it. I can already think of two countries, India and China, whose people are quite eager to replace Canada's host population and co-opt their achievements. This is colonialism masked in the language of immigration and nation building. Some neo-colonialists, like the Star's Haroon Siddiqui, have no problem with this but I do. Canada is the only country I have. It is not some land ripe for Islamic, Chinese, Indian, Sri Lankan, Mexican, Philippine, etc. national and cultural expansionism.

To say that Canada is multicultural is to deny that the Canadian exists. And to deny the existence of the Canadian is to deny that they have a history, a language, a culture. And to deny this is to deny the Canadian the right to a land to preserve the self. And the denial of the right to self preservation is inevitable extinction. This is where mass immigration and multiculturalism is leading the Canadian people. If this mindset, which is only a recent introduction into the Canadian psyche, is nurtured and allowed to grow then Canada is doomed, our culture is lost, and our history forgotten. No one, not even immigrant communities, would permit or even suggest such a course of action for their people. So why should Canadians?

Canada's leading Jewish group reacted calmly yesterday to a report that intelligence agencies in the United States and Canada fear Hezbollah is poised to attack "Jewish targets" somewhere outside the Middle East.

The ABC News report said Hezbollah had conducted surveillance on some Canadian Jewish sites.

[...]

The ABC News report said U.S. and Canadian intelligence agencies warn of signs Hezbollah, backed by Iran, is poised to mount a strike against "Jewish targets" outside the Middle East.

ABC said intelligence officials told the network that the group has activated suspected "sleeper cells" in Canada and operatives have been tracked moving outside the group's Lebanon base to Canada, Europe and Africa.

Officials say Hezbollah is seeking revenge for the February assassination of Hezbollah's military commander, Imad Mugniyah, killed by a car bomb in Syria. The group's leaders blamed Israel, but Israeli officials denied it.

Officials told ABC that suspected Hezbollah operatives have conducted recent surveillance on the Israeli embassy in Ottawa and on several synagogues in Toronto.

The veracity of these alleged threats remains to be seen unfortunately. We don't know how truthful these reports are until something happens and when it does people tend to die.

This report illustrates some of the negative consequences of mass immigration and a commitment to multiculturalism. How do Hezbollah operatives get into the country? How are they able to disappear into Canadian society? What community provides effective cover for their nefarious designs? Do Hezbollah operatives need to immigrate into Canada at all or are they able to recruit "homegrown" sympathizers and agents? You still think Muslim immigration is nothing to worry about?

As targets between warring factions are made difficult to attack in their respective homelands these people may look elsewhere to wage their war. If expatriate communities are providing funds and support to conflicting parties then they become legitimate targets in the eyes of their enemies. It is no surprise at all that Muslim terrorist groups seek to attack Israeli targets in foreign lands. It is easier to bomb the Israeli embassy in Ottawa than it is to destroy Israeli government buildings in Jerusalem. If Canada is a major fund raising base for one group then it becomes a matter of military strategy to cut off that funding and attack those targets on Canadian soil. If you think this is far fetched recall that a terrorist attack has already been successfully executed on Canadian soil: Air India Flight 182.

Mass immigration and multiculturalism may turn Canada into a battlefield.

Sunday, 15 June 2008

This is old news and I've meant to blog on it for a while now. It's about the launch of a Chinese focused Canadian political party.

Political party to focus on ChineseLeader promoting an alternative to traditional parties

John Bermingham, The ProvincePublished: Sunday, June 17, 2007

A new B.C. political party says it wants to bring a Chinese focus to provincial politics. The Nation Alliance Party, launched only last week, says its focus is on the 350,000 people in B.C. who are of Chinese heritage.

The four founders of the party all have such a background. They are Delta realtor and party leader Wei Ping Chen, along with a Burnaby student, a Surrey renovator and a Burnaby tourism guide.

[...]

Chen, 48, is a former university teacher in Beijing who came here in 2000. He says mainland Chinese immigrants tend not to vote in B.C. elections and to ignore local politics -- and he wants to change that.

[...]

Chen -- who says he has been asked to join the federal Liberals, but turned them down -- said the new party wants to help improve the lot of immigrant workers and to promote Chinese family values and safer communities.

[...]

Chinese families are being split when breadwinners move back to Asia to work, leaving their wives and kids here, Chen said. Others leave B.C. after getting their Canadian citizenship because they can't get ahead in their new country, he added.

He speaks of these things as if they are travesties but the reality is there is a conscious effort by many mainland Chinese immigrants to abuse Canadian citizenship laws, tax laws, and the country's publicly funded health care system and education system. They see Canada as an insurance policy and a retirement home as they work abroad paying as little taxes to the Canadian government yet are first in line when it comes to benefiting from any of Canada's publicly subsidized social programs. They park their kids, spouses, and sometimes parents in Canada to relieve themselves of the financial burden of educating or taking care of them and shift that responsibility onto the Canadian tax payer. To say that many Chinese immigrants return to Asia because they cannot get ahead in this country is disingenuous. The Chinese are not so stupid as to throw away all that they have achieved by immigrating to Canada. Many mainland Chinese return to Asia becuase they had no intention of really leaving it. They immigrate to Canada to acquire Canadian citizenship for themselves and their families to benefit from the social programs this country has to offer but do little to support it in the form of taxes.

Chen said he plans to build the Nation Alliance into both a federal and a municipal party and hopes to field candidates in upcoming elections. But he admits the party is still looking for an office, has very little money and has only signed 20 members to date.

[...]

The party is open to people of all backgrounds, Chen said.

The party's existence came to my attention when I first read about it in the Toronto Star. What was clearly stated in that Star article as is in the Province article is that the Nation Alliance Party is primarily concerned with Chinese issues in Canada and advancing Chinese concerns on Canadian society and politics. However you wouldn't know that from their homepage. Not only are you greeted with a screen providing links for information in either English, French, Spanish, or Mandarin (or is it Cantonese as if it matters) but nowhere does it say that the party is Chinese focused but instead seeks to advance the interests of ethnic minorities.

I think they are intentionally being deceptive because of the resulting backlash that followed the party's launch date and the understandable discomfort Canadians will have with an ethnic specific political party as if Canada needs a Chinese Bloc Quebecois.

What is revealing is the political climate that now exists in this country where ethnic minority groups are large enough and feel comfortable enough form ethnic specific political parties. To me this is symptomatic of the failure of multiculturalism as social policy and the predictable negative consequences of a misguided mass immigration system that disproportionately imports too many people from one country or region. The party admits, whether it means to or not, is that the Chinese are Chinese and they are not Canadian, citizenship aside, further exposing the "Canadian is a Canadian" myth.

A real concern is how the Chinese government in Beijing may use, maybe fund if they are not doing that already, this party to advance China's concerns within Canadian society and influence Canadian politics and policy to favour Chinese interests.

What is clear, even obvious, is that a Canadian is not a Canadian but we all know that anyways. If ethnic politics, whether co-opting existing parties or forming your own, is the future that Canada's immigration system and multiculturalism policy is leading this nation towards then we should stop this right now or face some grave and unintended consequences of the kind that will have destabilizing effects that could very well pose a threat to national unity. Politically Canada may be burdened with perpetual minority governments and coalitions. As for national unity, if the Quebec sovereignty movement had, and still has, the potential to redraw the political boundaries of this country imagine an Asian dominated British Columbia that feels Ottawa is ignoring its concerns becuase they are of Asian ancestry and not European. Don't think it will happen do you? If you don't, well I don't care. I don't wish to seek the fracturing of my country just to see who is right. Canada is the only country I have and I do not want to see it destroyed from within. I do not have another country I can run "home" to.

According to thisToronto Star article, a report by Toronto's Community Social Planning Council advises the Toronto and Catholic school boards to implement a "don't ask, don't tell" policy for the children of illegal immigrants.

Ontario's education ministry should adopt a province-wide "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy to ensure that doors are open for children of undocumented migrants toiling in Canada's underground economy, a new report urges.

"School officials (should) not be allowed to `ask' about a student, parent or guardian's immigration status," says the report, titled The Right to Learn, to be released today by the Community Social Planning Council of Toronto.

"And if he or she learned that a student, parent or guardian was without status, the staff, administrator or educator would not share this information with others, particularly law enforcement or immigration officials."

I am amazed at the audacity of that request. They are asking School officials to be co-conspirators in breaking Canadian immigration laws and aid and abet those who are. Are Canada's immigration laws not to be respected? If immigrants are willingly breaking Canada's immigration laws what does this say about their dererance for Canada as a nation and for Canadians as a people? Do they deserve our protection?

The province's Education Act says all children in Ontario can be enrolled in school regardless of immigration status. But a study researcher, posing as an undocumented individual looking for a school for his child, was denied a spot by officials at several Toronto public and Catholic schools, with one staff member asking him for the family's name with the "insinuation of calling immigration."

Oh how dare this staff member ask for the family's name with the intention of calling immigration! He's only assisting in the enforcement of this nation's laws.

The Toronto District School Board is the only Ontario board to have a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, adopted in 2007, but parents are still being asked their date of entry into Canada and to provide documentation, the report notes.

Oh no! Illegal immigrants are expected to provide proof of entry just like immigrants who enter the country legally and to be treated equally like everyone else. What a travesty it is that they are not being given exceptions and assisted in their illegal behaviour.

The board maintains it is necessary in order to receive funding for English-as-a-second-language programs and to determine if a student should be charged international fees. Toronto's Catholic school board still requires staff to make copies of both parents' and children's passports.

There are an estimated 200,000 undocumented migrants – mostly visitors overstaying their visas and failed refugee claimants avoiding deportation – in Canada, the majority in Greater Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.

It is clear these people do not deserve our protection and should be removed from the country. They abused the trust of Canada and lied to enter this country by posing as visitors with no intention of leaving. Or, they are failed refugee claims which means Canada, the easiest western country to scam a refugee claim, deems that they are not in flight and should be returned.

A "don't ask, don't tell" policy will only encourage illegal immigration because it assures those who are breaking Canada's immigration laws that they will elude discovery if they send their children to Ontario's schools. Thus, Ontario will be the prime destination for illegal immigration and illegal immigrants will be enticed to uproot their children by bringing them to Canada as well and enroll them in Ontario schools all the while facing an uncertain future. This is bad parenting and we shouldn't be encouraging this.

Thirdly, and most importantly, illegal immigrants don't pay taxes, at least not the ones that support the public education system (the public education system in Ontario is primarily funded by property taxes). This means that Canadians and landed immigrants will be subsidizing the education of the children of illegal immigrants as they also draw on publicly funded services such as English as a Second Language training. This is unjust.

The humane thing to do is to find these illegal immigrants and remove them as quickly as possible so that their children can continue their lives in their respective homelands instead of facing an uncertain future in Canada. The respectable and responsible thing to do is for these illegal immigrants to willingly remove themselves from the country and return to their homelands for the sake of their children instead of facing the daily fear of discovery and removal.

Monday, 9 June 2008

I have always felt uncomfortable with allowing refugees to claim Canadian citizenship after a certain period and settle permanently and it seems most Canadians feel the same way. By doing so we invite abuse of the system by unethical individuals who seek to use a humanitarian initiative for immigration purposes and that is exactly what Canada's refugee system has become: another stream for immigration. Most refugee claimants who reach Canada's shores, I strongly believe, are not real refugees but mostly third world middle class economic migrants, among others, scamming the refugee system. Here is the article found in the Toronto Star.

Canadians' vision of themselves as hospitable to people fleeing persecution elsewhere doesn't entirely hold up, a poll for a prestigious think-tank says.

If these people are fleeing persecution then why do so many of them return to their lands of alleged persecution? I would like to see a study that investigates how many refugees return to their homelands after they make a refugee claim. To give an example, the Sri Lankan Tamil community in Canada, the largest outside of Sri Lanka, has a penchant for going back to Sri Lanka after they make a refugee claim. This should beg questions causing us to consider if these people are real refugees at all.

While Canadians champion the idea of allowing skilled workers or separated family members into the country, they are less enthusiastic about refugees, concludes the poll by Nanos Research in Policy Options magazine, published by the Montreal-based Institute for Research on Public Policy.

[...]

The poll asked people whether three factors should be important when selecting immigrants. Across Canada, 68.2 per cent chose job skills, 58.8 per cent said family reunification and only 40.1 per cent picked refugee status. The numbers in Ontario were 71.1 per cent, 58.6 per cent and 40.2 per cent.

Because of the Singh Decision of 1985 a refugee is given all the rights of Canadian citizenship except the right to vote. That's why Canada is a favourite target for refugee claimants. They become de facto Canadian citizens just by saying the magic word at the border.

I don't think this is right. They should have protections but not be granted every privelege a Canadian citizen has. Indeed, I don't think landed immigrants should be given every privilege before they have taken their citizenship oath. The automatic granting of these privileges just cheapens Canadian citizenship and makes the oath taking ceremony a perfunctory act all the while cultivating an attitude of entitlement.

I also believe Canada should have a repatriation program. Refugees are not immigrants which is why job skills and language skills are not stressed for these individuals. They are fleeing danger until the coast is clear and when it is it should be expectant upon them to willfully return. Refugees may apply as landed immigrants but this means they will have to get in line like everybody else. But to use the refugee system as an avenue for immigration does this country a disservice and is unfair to all those who apply to come to Canada as landed immigrants. I know the critics will say that this will make refugees second class citizens in which case a solution may be temporary citizenship which they will lose when repatriated.

Also, I don't believe refugees should be allowed to sponsor the importation of family members outside of spouse and dependents. If they claim their family is in danger as well then they can make a refugee claim themselves and let Canada decide that. Right now, not only is the refugee system being abused to get an economic migrant posing as a bogus refugee into a first world nation but it is also being further exploited to get this individual's extended family into the country as well via the family reunification stream. These individuals, like the original refugee claimant, need no pertinent language or job skills. This is why poverty rates are so high within refugee communities like the Sri Lankan Tamil and Somali communities.

The poll also sought opinions on dual citizenship. Nanos found the majority support it – 51.3 per cent overall and 54.2 per cent in Ontario – surprising, but also a reflection of modern Canada.

"It reflects our multicultural mix," he said. "Most Canadians still believe it is possible to balance being a proud Canadian and holding on to your heritage."

To me that figure of 51.3 per cent is a slim, or bare, majority. Put another way 49.7 per cent oppose dual citizenship. Considering the fact that 20 per cent of Canadians were not born in the country, a people who many live with dual loyalties, that 51.3 per cent figure is arguably influenced by that fact. So we may reasonably say that the majority of Canadians oppose dual citizenship.

I haven't completely made up my mind about dual citizenship even though 50,000 "Canadians" were residing in Lebanon at one time, the largest contingent of foreign nationals for that country which is strange since Canada has no history with Lebanon. Also 250,000 "Canadians" living in Hong Kong is off putting. I think we can still manage a dual citizenship regime but we need to close the loop holes in our tax laws for these individuals.

Sunday, 8 June 2008

[...]the Alberta Federation of Labour is squaring the debate with today’s labour market realities. A paper by Herbert Grubel, for instance, blames Canada’s poor selection criteria and high rates of immigration for the failure of recent immigrants to achieve incomes comparable to resident Canadians, even though previous immigrants did so within 10 years of arrival. Accordingly, Immigration and the Welfare State in Canada, published by the Fraser Institute, estimates a cost to Canadian taxpayers of more than $18 billion for immigrants who arrived between 1990 and 2002.

[...]In 2002, 23.3 per cent of all Canadian immigrants were principal applicants, that is skilled workers who acquired sufficient points for language, skills, etc., under Canada’s selection criteria to gain admission to Canada while their spouses and dependents, who are allowed automatic entry, comprised a further 30.5 per cent. Together, at 53.5 per cent of total immigrants, they made up the bulk of Canada’s Economic Immigrants.

Family-class immigrants, at 28.5 per cent of the total in 2002, are the other dominant set. Consisting of parents and grandparents (9.8 per cent) and “immediate” family members (18.7 per cent), these immigrants must be sponsored. Like parents and grandparents, the myriad cousins, uncles, in-laws, sisters and fianc‚s are then able to sponsor other “immediate” family members, leading to a phenomenon known as “chain” migration. In other words, family-class immigrants meet no selection criteria. This means they often arrive with no language or job skills and a commensurately diminished capacity for paying taxes and social integration.

[...]the number of ethnic enclaves - defined as “census” regions where at least 30 per cent of the population is of a particular ethnic background - rose to 254 by 2001, from six in 1981.

[...]the president of the Alberta Federation of Labour told me how, even in booming Alberta, there is no blanket shortage of labour. “Overall, the market is tight but absolute shortages exist only in certain sectors. In others, like natural gas, forestry and agriculture, workers are being laid off,” Gil McGowan said

If you want to effectively challenge the status quo and reform the system you need to arm yourself with the facts.

Saturday, 7 June 2008

I pulled the following from five feet fury. And for those who don't know who the Toronto-18 are, or have forgotten, here is a site, albeit a sympathetic one, about them.

12% of Canadian Muslims polled by Environics justify a terrirst attack by the Toronto-18! That is 96,000 Muslims willing to attack their own homeland. If this was Egypt of Iran and the tables were turned, most of us would be in detention centres as terror suspects.

5% of the Muslims polled said they would welcome a terror attack on Canada. Do you know that is close to 35,000 terror suspects?

For God's sake, cut your losses and walk away from these losers and liars who take their inspiration from Ahmedinejad and the Saudis as well as the books of such hate mongers as Syed Qutb, Hassan al-Banna and Syed Maudoodi.

That was written by Tarek Fatah. I know of him and he is a man of candor and so you can take him at his word. Still, uncertain of that poll I googled it and it was referenced here and here.

We all know that most Muslims are not terrorists nor do they have aspirations to be one. But it seems a considerable portion of them do lend soft support to terrorist actions. They may not be terrorists themselves and will never commit a terrorist act but they understand terrorist motives nonetheless.

Again, most Muslims are not terrorists but most Muslims don't have to be. It only takes a handful to cause real damage to any society. With that said, and considering the Muslim community's inability - or unwillingness - to police itself of terrorist threats coupled with a segments soft support for terrorism, do you still think Muslim immigration is nothing to be concerned about?

I do not support an absolute ban on Muslim immigration but I do support limitations placed on Muslim immigration especially the numbers allowed to enter the country.

Trevor Lautens, Special To North Shore NewsPublished: Friday, May 09, 2008

[...]But Top People, and the media who serve them and know how far to go too far, as the Frenchman said, are reluctant to chase them -- because some are decidedly politically incorrect. Let me count the ways.

Immigrants. StatsCanada also reported that since 1980 immigrants have sharply lower incomes than those before 1980. But Proper Canadians (whose field marks include moral superiority to the Americans and faith in collective action and expanding government) shrink from joining the dots.

Let me help by stating the obvious. In recent decades immigration, especially in British Columbia, has massively swung away from Europe to the less-developed (awful phrase) world like China, South Asia, Iran -- people whose language and very alphabets are utterly dissimilar, and whose cultures and religions are not only unlike but in some cases hostile to the values and norms of the West, especially of what brilliant writer Mark Steyn (now there's a man embroiled in the new, Proper Canada's grim Star Chambers and kangaroo courts) calls the Anglosphere, the global community of English-speaking people.

Those earlier, post-Second World War immigrants -- I think fondly of the Dutch especially, but too many more to list -- had no illusions about, and no desire to avoid, "assimilation," a world less likely to appear in correct Canada these days than the four-letter one for fornication.

The plucky (another vanished word) of any nationality can overcome anything, as many praiseworthy immigrants have. But any immigrants to Canada without English, notoriously hard to learn and internationally valued -- see the April 28 New Yorker story on Li Yang, who literally shouts what he calls "Crazy English" to his students in China -- or French, are likely to settle into ethnic ghettos where they are vulnerable to exploitation, including lousy under-the-table wages, especially by their own nationals.

Future Canadians will indict us for our interminable obsession with past injustices to aboriginals while winking at present exploitation of immigrants, notably Filipina nannies and Sikh dump-truck drivers (and their squeezed owners at the bottom of the construction food chain).

And not to pass over "soft discrimination" -- protectionism by any term -- levied by professional associations against immigrants like doctors and veterinarians, forced to take menial jobs belying the promises of this land of opportunity.

So it's not surprising that, as a group, immigrants for decades have dragged down Joe and Jane Median's income.

The fact that Canada accepts too many immigrants and of lesser value than it has in previous decades is a factor as well.

Canada needs at least an additional 250,000 construction workers over the next eight years to keep pace with new projects and replenish an aging workforce, an industry report says.

[...]

Canada-wide, employment in the industry has increased by a record 39 per cent over the last five years, but that influx won't be enough, said the report.

Undoubtedly the concern is over rising labour costs due to the diminished supply of available labour. So, if you want to control rising labour costs you flood the market. Such is the motive behind private sector support for mass immigration. The trades and other unionized work want to restrict labour market access to maintain high wage regimes. This is one of the reasons why getting a unionized job and even a job in the trades is made all the more difficult. It is also one of the reasons why professional organizations throw around the vacuous "Canadian experience" requirement for all immigrants. It's meant to protect them from the negative financial consequences of mass immigration without having to vocally oppose mass immigration and suffer equally vacuous accusations of racism.

Be that as it may, if Canada needs to fill 250,000 construction jobs how much help can Canada get from its number 1 and number 2 source countries for immigrants: India and China respectively? I say little to none. My answer is based primarily on observation and exposure to the cultural snobbery these two immigrant groups have for the trades and other "working class" jobs. A recent CTVreport offers further insight.

Toronto police have tough time recruiting Asians

Updated Sun. May. 25 2008 8:51 AM ET

Sandie Benitah, ctvtoronto.ca

Since the 1980s, Toronto police have been making a concerted effort to reach out to the city's ethnic communities by forming relationships with residents and by trying to get them involved with the police service.

More than 20 years after he joined the force, Yuen said he still sees how hard it is to engage members of the Asian community.

The police have a less than honourable reputation in China. The stereotype is that the profession tends to attract people who are uneducated and unmotivated to move past their working class stature.

Moreover, police officers are often seen as being corrupt, taking advantage of a stringent regime to exert excessive power over the people.

[...]

Despite the advancements the police have made in reaching out, a lot of the old stereotypes about police still hold true for traditional Chinese families living in Toronto.

Karen Sun, the executive director of the Toronto chapter of the Chinese Canadian National Council, said for some parents, becoming a police officer is as prestigious a job as becoming a plumber.

"It's a class issue," she said. "Not that policing is bad but we want our children to have good professional jobs. (Policing) is seen more as being a lower status kind of job."

[...]

In China, education equals stature in society said Sun.

"It could be a very well paying job and police officers can have a good career but there is a perception that you don't have to have a university education," she said. "You won't encourage your kid to become a plumber, even though they can make a good living."

Instead, most Chinese parents will push their children into professions in medicine, law or engineering.

Am I the only one who finds it funny that the Chinese community here has the audacity to accuse the police of corruption? I guess getting arrested and charged with piracy and counterfeiting does leave a bad taste in one's mouth.

Many of the looming job shortages Canada faces in the future may be considered a "lower class kinda job" as if plumbers and police officers do not make good money. If Chinese immigrants are averse to these kinds of "lower class jobs" then why do we allow so many Chinese immigrants into the country? There is a doctor shortage but mass immigration is partially to blame for that. As for engineers and lawyers, well, Canada does have enough of those.

It is not only the Chinese, I have found, who harbour this kind of class prejudice. I have encountered much the same in the South Asian community as well where much of the immigrants are upper caste Indians, which is to say upper class Indians. If you need visual proof then visit any construction job site at random and see how many Asian or South Asian construction workers you can find. Better still, just look for a plumber in the phone book. To their credit South Asian immigrants are more accepting of "blue collar" work as opposed to their Asian counter parts but not so much as to allow in so many immigrants from India.

The point I am trying to make here is that Canada is accepting too many of the wrong kinds of immigrants aside from accepting too many immigrants in general. If Chinese immigrants and, to a lesser extent, South Asian immigrants are averse to filling the "lower class kinda jobs" that Canada imported them to fill in the first place then we shouldn't be importing so many of them. There should be a shift to nations that do produce the immigrants who will take these jobs. Of course this will inevitably shift focus away from Asia and we can't have that. Canada belongs to Asia after all.

The more appropriate and just solution is to look domestically for a solution and the Star article suggests this.

The construction council said retaining older employees while encouraging new people to join trades is one way to stem the flow.

The council also wants to see an increase in the number of temporary foreign workers, as well as a focus on recruiting Canadian women and aboriginal people.

"Attracting young people to start their careers in construction will be an increasingly hard sell" as the population gets older, said the report.

When the building industry started to recover in 1996, it drew workers largely from the unemployed ranks and from veteran workers who had left the industry during the early '90s, said the council.

There are plenty of unemployed Ontarians due to the decline in the provinces manufacturing sector providing a ready pool of labour that can be trained right now, not tomorrow regardless of age. This is the right thing to do. We need to look to ourselves before we turn to immigration. Otherwise immigration just becomes an attack on Canadian livelihoods.

This is probably why the Chinese community opposed Bill C-50. It's a communal acknowledgment that Canada doesn't need so much Chinese immigration and such immigration only serves the needs of the Chinese community and not the needs of Canada as a whole. If Canada adopted a pragmatic approach, an approach Bill C-50 has to potential of adopting, then I am certain Asian immigration would decline.

We are reminded not to succumb to racially stereotyping the black community every time one of its individuals pulls a gun, robs a store, or gets involved in a violent altercation for the nth time. We are equally reminded not to do so to the Muslim community every time we read or hear news reports of, yet another, terrorist attack done in the name of Islam. Same is said of the gay community each time of its members dies of AIDS. Same is said of the Asian community each time one of them is busted for fraud, counterfeiting, copy right infringement, or drug trafficking. But in thisToronto Star article whites are all supposed to bow their heads in collective shame as they sadly realize that they are all beset by an incurable trait called racism, a trait that is uniquely their own.

Georgina faces some ugly truths

In the wake of a much-publicized string of attacks on Asian fishermen, a community was forced to face its demons. Now, the focus is on healing

Jun 07, 2008 04:30 AMRobyn DoolittleStaff Reporter

But last September, this bridge was a crime scene, linked to a rash of disturbing attacks against Asian fishermen. A Toronto angler out fishing with some friends was pushed into the river by some local twentysomethings. It launched a chain of events – a brawl, a high-speed car chase, and finally a horrific crash – that put Shayne Berwick in a coma for 8 months.

[...]

Six assaults were eventually reported to York police. Arrests have been made in five. Dozens more victims told stories of harassment, racial slurs, theft and assault on Chinese-language call-in shows. Incidents were reported as far away as Peterborough and Westport.

[...]

As the debate raged, nine parked vehicles were vandalized with swastikas, anti-Semitic graffiti and homosexual slurs in late September.

[...]

Located at the northern tip of York region, Georgina is a geographically large but sparsely populated community, where 96 per cent of the 42,000 residents are white. The majority of residents are undoubtedly open-minded and tolerant, but like many rural towns, it has its share of prejudice and isolationist sentiments.

The paradox is that just 30 minutes south of Georgina on Highway 404 is Markham, one of the country's most diverse communities with 65 per cent of the 261,000 residents identifying themselves as members of a visible minority.

"I've heard theories about Georgina – apparently that particular area, it's very white and people who live there have lived there for a long, long time and there isn't much mixing with even the outside white people. It's just a very isolated community," said Avvy Go, director of the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic.

You've got to be kidding me! Avvy Go should know that what she just said can be equally applied to the Chinese community in Canada. They may live in multicultural cities but the Chinese rarely venture outside of their own communities and socialize with non-Chinese Canadians. They are insular, isolationist, very nationalistic towards China, and, I must say, very racist (you'll rarely, if at all, see someone who is Chinese date someone who is black because blacks are, you know, filthy). I'm sure Ms. Go knows this but it is better to distract us from these "ugly truths" about the Asian community and focus our attention on those nasty white bogeymen living north of Steeles Avenue.

But what is interesting is that Markham, Ontario is mentioned - where the white population has been reduced to 35% with an equal and rising of Asian population - as if that is a model Canadian city. The question I ask is if this "journalist" bothered herself to investigate race relations in Markham? Several years ago the rapid influx of Chinese immigrants into Markham caused the then mayor of Markham to voice with disapproval that Markham is "going Chinese" bringing to light the racial tensions that arise when one racial group displaces another. The mayor was castigated for stating the obvious because the reduction of whites to minority status is "progressive" and therefore a good thing where predominately white towns like Georgina are relics of "old Canada" that need to be replaced with the Toronto model: the reduction of the domestic population to minority status with the rapid introduction non-Europeans via mass immigration. It is a scientific fact that non whites are incapable of racism by virtue of the colour of their skin alone.

There is more to this story than is being reported. If Asian fishermen are attracting such negative attention it's probably because they are doing something that invites it. They are not "babes in the woods" as this article lets on. I've written about it here, here, here, here, here and especially here.

The real purpose of this piece is to stroke the egos of Torontonians and those who live in the GTA. It tells them that they are so much better than everyone else including fellow Canadians because they are cosmopolitan and welcome with open arms minority status for the host population because they are progressive, whatever that's supposed to mean. The "journalist" accomplishes this by generalizing rural Canadians as closed minded, insular, isolationist, inward looking, traditional and resistant to change, "too white", and, above all, racist and we all know how progressive it is to generalize vast segments of a population with the boneheaded antics of a few individuals.

Also this piece, and others like it, imply that the onus for racial harmony rests solely on the shoulders of the white majority population as if racial minorities share none of the responsibility. This, of course, is ridiculous.

More disconcerting is the lack of any real debate about immigration matters and multiculturalism coupled with the systematic repression of dissenting voices will only push people to engage in racist acts to express their discontent. We should learn from this and allow more open and honest discussions facing the demographic and cultural changes that has been imposed upon the people of this country but it looks like the left, who control the debate, seem to favour more laws and more arrests to restrict debate. Now that's what I call progressive.

A Central American street gang is the target of a massive GTA-wide police operation aimed at liquidating the notoriously violent group from this city's streets, a police source said yesterday.

In a series of pre-dawn raids, officers busted into 22 homes, mainly in the city's west end, and arrested 21 suspected members of Mara Salvatrucha-13 and others with ties to the organization.

Described as one of the most savage gangs in the world, MS-13 is considered to be in the embryonic stage of developing in Canada, the source said, and the ongoing sweeps are an attempt to prevent the gang from securing a local foothold and growing dangerous roots.

[...]

Police said yesterday members are implicated in the distribution of illicit drugs and firearms and a police source said they have also been linked to several violent robberies and break and enters.

[...]

Officers would not give any indication of the local MS-13 chapter's size or strength, but gang expert Michael Chettleburgh estimated membership at roughly 25 people. He said he doesn't believe local gang members have set their sights on growing in Toronto, but have come to live here because of family, or because they're escaping charges in another country.

"Canada is perceived as a safe destination for them," said Chettleburgh, a crime prevention consultant and author. "But it's not like they are a Tim Hortons, trying to start a new Toronto franchise."

If this gang ever gets established in Toronto it's because we let it by mass immigration. We now have Asian gangs, Tamil street gangs, Indo-Canadian gangs, as if domestic Biker gangs were not enough. The streets of Canadian cities are becoming less safe because of this country's inept immigration and refugee system. If you don't believe me then just read the newspapers on a daily basis.

According to this article from the Toronto Star only a "handful" of Liberal MPs bothered themselves to show up and oppose it. It just goes to show the dubious commitment the party has to immigrant communities.

Immigration reform passes in Commons

With only a handful of Liberals turning up to vote, Tories' controversial changes sail through 114-83

Jun 03, 2008 04:30 AMBruce Campion-SmithOttawa Bureau Chief

The Tories' budget implementation bill – which contains the immigration reforms – survived three votes last night and looks certain to get the Commons' final approval tomorrow or Thursday before going to the Senate. Only a handful of Liberals turned up for the votes, which passed 114-83.

Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion says more and more voters are in the mood for an election, but he's biding his time.

Opposition parties have denounced the overhaul of the immigration system contained in the bill. But as in past confidence votes, the Liberals voted strategically to avoid defeating the minority Conservatives and forcing an election.

Just so there was no doubt, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty stressed before the vote that Bill C-50 was a confidence bill. That means if it was defeated or amended, the government would fall.

Bill C-50 contains a contentious proposal to give the immigration minister the power to issue "instructions" to her department to give priority to categories of skilled workers deemed in demand. The department would also have the power to refuse applications in other categories.

To be clear only immigrant groups and those whose livelihoods are rooted in the immigration industry - lawyers, social workers, consultants - actually opposed the Bill. The vast majority of Canadians, and I mean the vast majority of Canadians, didn't know what was going on, distracted instead by rising gas prices. If the government was defeated it was because immigrants, foreign born Canadian citizens whose sincere commitment to this country I find increasingly questionable, wanted to force an election. It seems their commitment to their countrymen abroad was greater than their commitment to Canada and Canadians.

I do not see how the immigration reforms are harmful to Canada and Canadians and from I can see in them I think they are an improvement. Canada accepts too many immigrants, many of whom would not be here were the immigration system more pragmatic and served the real needs of Canada and Canadians. Right now we have immigration for immigration's sake and the predictable consequences of such a misguided approach are becoming apparent.

Monday, 2 June 2008

The first one is called Refugee Resettlement Watch. It's U.S. based but not U.S. exclusive and so it has some Canadian content and international content as well. It's worth the visit so put it in your bookmarks.

The other site is called five feet of fury. I've added this site under Protect Free Speech in Canada because the site's author, Kathy Shaidle, is being harassed by Canada's Orwellian Human Rights Commissions. She's also very funny and irreverent. If anything visit the site for Kathy's sardonic wit alone.

Like I said before, I do not update this blog often though I do have lots to blog about. So to get your fix I recommend visiting my links.